Christopher Golden - Tears of the Furies

He focused now on a particular section of bare wall, oddly free from clutter. "What have we here?" he asked, laying the flat of his hand against the wall — all muscle and membrane — tilting his head to one side as if listening. "Yes," the arch mage hissed, stepping back away from the wall and extending his arms. "This might very well be it."

Sweetblood weaved a pattern in the air and it took crackling, sparkling form. The pattern seared itself into the wall, and it fell away to dust, disintegrating in an instant. There was a room hidden on the other side.

"No secrets can remain hidden forever," Sanguedolce said with a twinkle in his icy blue eyes. "We’ve learned that, haven’t we, Arthur?"

Something moved swiftly within the darkness of the hidden chamber and Conan Doyle reacted instinctively, leaping across the room to tackle Sanguedolce, knocking him to the ground.

"Have you lost your — " The arch mage began just as the sword blade swung out from the darkness, cleaving the space where Sanguedolce had just stood.

"If the Forge is as valuable as you say," Conan Doyle said, climbing from atop his mentor. "Only a fool would assume it’s been left unguarded."

The creature that emerged from the hole in that wall was at least ten feet high. It was a warrior, but not of flesh and blood. Not of bone and sinew. The guardian of the Forge was fashioned from bronze, a mechanical man, and he wielded an enormous sword. Fire from Hephaestus’s Forge burned in the empty hollows of its eyes and mouth.

The creation of Hephaestus turned its head and let out a battle cry very much like rending metal, launching its attack upon them. The automaton moved stiffly, and Conan Doyle wondered whether the wondrous device wasn’t feeling the effects of time’s cruel passage.

Conan Doyle ducked beneath a swipe of the sword’s blade and dove at a pile of weaponry, hoping to find something to stave off the bronze robot’s attack. He needed a moment to collect his thoughts, to summon a spell that would destroy the guardian. The blade he raised was little more than a dagger to the gods, but it made an unwieldy sword for an ordinary man. He managed to lift a piece of unfinished armor plating and use it as a cruel shield, blocking the bronze guardian’s sword as it come down toward him. The force of the blow nearly drove him to his knees. Conan Doyle lashed out with his own blade, hacking away at the metal man with little effect.

The guardian’s attack was relentless, and Conan Doyle could barely gather his thoughts enough to strike back. It was all he could do to defend himself. Magick was his only hope. When next the automaton raised his sword, Conan Doyle found the opportunity to unleash his spell.

The guardian roared, fiery sparks spilling from the sides of its open mouth as it brought the blade down again. Conan Doyle dropped his own weapon and raised his hand, shouting the final words of the incantation. The air bent and distorted as invisible power jumped the distance between them, and then the ancient machine was blasted backward into the many, carefully balanced crates of jewelry. The wooden boxes teetered and swayed, tumbling down upon Hephaestus’s bronze sentry, burying him beneath a deluge of handcrafted baubles.

Dust undisturbed for countless millennia billowed in the air and Conan Doyle squinted through the roiling haze for a sign of his foe. As the dust began to settle, he saw that the guardian had been buried beneath the avalanche; only a bronze hand sticking out from the rubble.

Conan Doyle dropped his makeshift shield onto a nearby pile of assorted weaponry and glanced about for Sanguedolce.

The bronze automaton erupted up from the wreckage, tossing it aside as if it were no more bothersome than collected raindrops.

The guardian reached for him, its large, segmented fingers closing in a vise-like grip upon his shoulders and neck. Conan Doyle gasped. Explosions of color danced before his eyes as his brain cried out for oxygen, and he feebly struggled to wrench those fingers from his throat.

A resounding clap of thunder filled the room, and Conan Doyle dropped heavily, painfully to the ground, precious gulps of air filling his greedy lungs. As his vision cleared, he saw that the mechanical man still loomed above him, arms extended, segmented fingers bent into claws, but now something was missing. Stunned, Conan Doyle gazed at the empty space above the mechanical sentry’s shoulders where it’s head had been. All that remained was a jagged, smoking stump.

Conan Doyle picked himself up, rubbing the feeling back into his neck.

"Quickly now, man," he heard Sanguedolce call, and he glanced up sharply to find the arch mage standing at the ragged entrance. His hand still glowed white from the forces he had just released against the guardian of the Forge, and he gestured for Conan Doyle to join him.

"I’m going to require your assistance if we’re to take the Forge from the Underworld."

Conan Doyle stumbled toward the hole blown into the chamber. "Are you certain this is wise?"

Sanguedolce stood before a towering object made from blocks of stone that could only have been the Forge of Hephaestus. A pulsing orange glow like a miniature sun still burned from within the belly of the stone furnace, and Conan Doyle could feel its blistering heat on his face. There was something about the Forge, something that made him feel afraid. He could see by the expression on his former master’s face that he was not alone in these feelings.

"No, I’m not," Sweetblood confessed. "But I don’t believe we have any choice."

The drape of night still hung heavy across the sky when Clay rode into Sparta, but the eastern horizon was tinted to indigo, just the barest hint that dawn would soon arrive. Squire sat behind him on the battered motorcycle they had taken from an alley near the docks where they made landfall. Dr. Graves had wanted to leave compensation, or a note for the owner. Clay had dismissed the suggestion as impractical. They had no way of knowing if the owner would ever find the money.

"Besides," Squire had snorted. "We’re hunting a monster. It’s not like we’re the friggin’ Justice League."

Now Graves flew overhead, a silhouette barely visible against the night sky, and only to those who were looking. Clay maneuvered the motorcycle through the streets of Sparta with Squire clinging to the bike behind him and the forbidding shapes of the mountains looming in the distance. The nearer they had come to Sparta, the quieter they became. Even Squire had fallen silent now, with the dawn approaching. Clay wondered if he was simply tired or if he somehow sensed that they were at last gaining ground on their prey.

Medusa had stopped running. He assumed she needed to rest, because he doubted that this was her final destination. Clay clutched the handlebars of the motorcycle and focused on the tendril of ectoplasmic energy that stretched out ahead of him, the soul trail left by the passing of the monster and the spectral remnant of the last human she had slain. He had hunted many killers in his long existence and when he drew near to them he was always aware.

He could feel the murder in her heart.

The motorcycle’s roar shattered the predawn quiet, grinding the air even as its tires bit the road. It was as though Sparta itself slumbered and the engine startled it awake.

They passed a decrepit hotel and a cafe, then came to a crossroads where Clay brought the bike to a halt, engine grumbling, struggling to spring forward once more. Squire continued his recent silence and Clay wondered if the hobgoblin had somehow fallen asleep while straddling the motorcycle.

"What is it?" whispered the voice of Dr. Graves.

Clay glanced to his left and saw the ghost hovering there, a golden tint to his spectral form, as though the sunrise tinted not only the eastern sky but the adventurer’s wandering soul.